Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Audible sample Sample
The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person (Jewish Encounters Series) Hardcover – October 2, 2012
Part of the Jewish Encounter series
From one of our most trusted spiritual advisers, a thoughtful, illuminating guide to that most fascinating of biblical texts, the book of Job, and what it can teach us about living in a troubled world.
The story of Job is one of unjust things happening to a good man. Yet after losing everything, Job—though confused, angry, and questioning God—refuses to reject his faith, although he challenges some central aspects of it. Rabbi Harold S. Kushner examines the questions raised by Job’s experience, questions that have challenged wisdom seekers and worshippers for centuries. What kind of God permits such bad things to happen to good people? Why does God test loyal followers? Can a truly good God be all-powerful?
Rooted in the text, the critical tradition that surrounds it, and the author’s own profoundly moral thinking, Kushner’s study gives us the book of Job as a touchstone for our time. Taking lessons from historical and personal tragedy, Kushner teaches us about what can and cannot be controlled, about the power of faith when all seems dark, and about our ability to find God.
Rigorous and insightful yet deeply affecting, The Book of Job is balm for a distressed age—and Rabbi Kushner’s most important book since When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
- Print length224 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSchocken
- Publication dateOctober 2, 2012
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.91 x 7.82 inches
- ISBN-109780805242928
- ISBN-13978-0805242928
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Similar items that may ship from close to you
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Review
-Kirkus
“Kushner skillfully analyzes this complex story, surveying many sources along with offering his own impressive interpretation.”
-Publishers Weekly
“Kushner’s analysis challenges popular understanding of a text written and rewritten by unknown authors perhaps separated by centuries…No one can explain why evil exists, let alone in 200 pages. Still, Kushner’s tragic loss lets him assail an insolvable problem with authority.”
-The Washington Post
“Harold Kushner first brought comfort and insight to many in 1981 with his best-selling self-help book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Since then, he’s continued to offer life- and faith-affirming messages…In Job’s anguish and anger toward God, Kushner finds lessons on how one might remain faithful to a God who does not protect us from suffering.”
-Vox Tablet (weekly podcast of Tablet Magazine)
“Kushner’s lifelong experience with and study of the central questions of Job make almost every page of his masterful reading stimulating and often provocative and will turn many readers to the text.”
-Jewish Book Council
“Harold S. Kushner…share[s] the gifts of scholarly foundations, challenges to conventional theology, and a style that enlightens and inspires the decidedly un-Biblical among his readers…Kushner does a wonderful job summing up what he takes away from the Job story (it is actually something of a spoiler to paraphrase it, so buy the book) and handily condenses thinking from some of the great Jewish thinkers.”
-The Seattle Times
About the Author
Harold S. Kushner is rabbi laureate of Temple Israel in the Boston suburb of Natick, Massachusetts. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he is the author of more than a dozen books on coping with life’s challenges, including, most recently, the best-selling Conquering Fear and Overcoming Life’s Disappointments.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
“There is one place in the Bible where serious theological conversation about the nature and thought process of God does take place, prompted by the conflict between the human wish to see the world as a moral sphere where people get what they deserve, where everything happens for a reason, and the inescapable reality that ours is a world where good people suffer for no apparent reason. The book of Job is a full-length argument about whether the misfortunes that befall ostensibly good people come to them from the hand of God. If we want to believe that ours is a moral world, the scene of justice and fairness, we need to confront the arguments presented in what is probably the most challenging book in the entire Bible: the book of Job.”
Product details
- ASIN : 0805242929
- Publisher : Schocken; 1st edition (October 2, 2012)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 224 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780805242928
- ISBN-13 : 978-0805242928
- Item Weight : 11.9 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.91 x 7.82 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #232,939 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #247 in Hebrew Bible
- #463 in Old Testament Commentaries
- #1,202 in Inspiration & Spirituality
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Harold S. Kushner is Rabbi Laureate of Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts, where he lives. His books include the huge bestseller When Bad Things Happen To Good People and When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Kushner's book is one the most profound books written which attempts to take the theodical problem, head on. Kushner's reading and exposition of Job is unique and touching. He also spends a great deal of time reviewing ancient, medieval, modern and even current commentaries and interpretations of the book, making this book an invaluable resource to scholarly study. I love Kushner, the first time I heard him speak was at a college seminar, and he absolutely blew my mind. Since then I have watched him debate on panels, and talk religion with Christians, atheists and Muslims. He always acquits himself admirably and has added much to my life as a Christian, turned radical atheist, turned Christian again; never, even while an atheist, have I ever lost respect or love for Kushner. This book is the magnum opus of a true maestro. God bless you, and keep my Rabbi.
I’ve been studying Job on and off for the last 3 years. During that time I’ve read about a dozen books on the book of Job and topic of suffering. I have learned something from all of them but this book clearly stands out.
Kushner doesn’t take the time to go verse by verse and explain what is being said – and I think that is a real benefit of his writing. He aims and grasping the larger ideas – what is the main thought Job and his friends are communication, what is the purpose of God’s interruption, what conclusion are readers supposed to arrive at after finishing the book.
Because he approaches the book of Job and the problem of suffering from such a high level he is able to see things and reach conclusions others have missed. I honestly have never heard the final chapters of Job interpreted as he has done it and I am deeply touched by the picture of God and life he draws for his readers.
That being said, I am reading this as a Christian and for that reason I did see some theological differences with mainstream Christian thought. But many of those were well founded and challenged me in productive ways.
This is a book the author lived through and readers can tell. I believe every person – religious or not – should take the time to read this book and evolve their understanding of pain in the world.